NHL 24 is on PC now?!?!?

@hiperay 

I'm just finding out about it myself. Glad to see this happening. I know people want a true PC version, but this at least lets the game be played on PC.

It took 15 years but we have a way to play CHEL on PC again.  Better than nothing.  Let's go for a full port next year!

@youneverknow8 

It'll be interesting to see how many people take advantage of this. If there truly are as many PC players as people think, it could help grow the effort for a full PC release.

I don't think this will be a great barometer.  For a myriad of reasons:

• EA has put zero effort apparently into announcing this, as even you yourself had no idea it had even occured.  I checked the EA NHL twitter, literally no announcements about this lol
• You are now filtering down to now only people who use the Xbox app, not only those that have Gamepass, but only those that have Gamepass ULTIMATE
• Now you are looking at a sub-section data where those players are willing to use Cloud Streaming

So essentially, you're looking at a sub-section of users that pay the premium price for the service but are willing to use the most sub-optimal method of playing games on their hardware.

Given these factors I don't think the data will be that representative of real demand, but of course you should see SOME traction for people that have been actively seeking this out.

Also understand many people who have been actively waiting for this, after being told for years now it will never happen have simply given up.  For those people it's quite likely they would only see an NHL PC release through some major announcement or the game literally pop up in the Steam new releases section.

Of course, for the people who are still trying to play this game on pc, actively visiting this forum, and are paid premium subscribers for Xbox GamePass, they will likely play this.  But I believe that is a very small % of the unrealized demand for this game on PC.

@youneverknow8 

I'm looking into messaging on our end. No idea what will happen with that, but I wouldn't be surprised if it got announced somewhere. Even without that, I imagine word will spread. And, if there is a good response just from the crowd you mentioned, it points to an overall larger interest. While it's not exactly the best barometer, it's still some very useful data that can be taken into account when considering a full PC release.

I think this is a very difficult metric to go off of. I played a couple of games on it and here are my thoughts. 

• Playing 5 games of EASHL 3v3 Quickplay, I noticed an average ping per game of around 60 with a low of 36 and a high of 90+. Mild latency in controller inputs but manageable.
• As the game is only able to be played as a cloud game, you are not playing the game from your computers processor power but instead receiving the audio/video of the game played from a remote server using a virtual machine. Because of this, the video quality while okay, could be much better and suffered some refresh problems with the screen flickering to reset the image at times. 
• Any attempt to play the game in full screen is short of impossible as switching windows while in full screen causes the connection to be lost. 
• The game can only be played via the Xbox app on PC and not through any other GamePass options like Mobile phone/tablet.

That all being said though..

• The game was perfect for its offline modes like Rush and Ones. I was only able to notice very little to no latency issues when playing offline games.
• Once full screen was turned off, I was able to switch windows on the same monitor without losing connection as long as the switch was short. Disconnects still occurred though so it would be beneficial to have multiple monitors to avoid this.

So take this with a grain of salt. I am happy the PC community has a way of playing NHL 24 but in their defense, the numbers for the interest of PC players are not going to be even close to accurate here from the game being fully installable on PC. It requires having an Xbox Gamepass Ultimate subscription for EA Play access and PC users have very little to gain from purchasing this sadly. If they do have this, then its only for a way to play it remotely where you cannot even download the game at least like you could with Grounded or Starfield for example so it will have its crashes and freezes not because of their systems, but the EA servers they are playing this off of. 

Yeah I agree, I just wanted people to understand what they are to expect if they decide to play using this feature. I have played plenty of games via cloud and like many, its great for offline stuff, but struggles with online. Not everyone might know that so I wanted to get that detail out in the open. Still it could be great for those that have been wanting to play franchise mode or Be a pro and if its all we have, its better than nothing and I urge those to open the game and play a little to show the teams that there is enough people to warrant the game being ported to pc.

An announcement to let players know will definitely help. I had no idea until I randomly saw the game show up on Gamepass today. Trying it out now! 

Its great for offline content. Amazing if you are looking to play GM mode. However, it's not ideal, but is possible for Online.